21 September 2009

He posts in response to this story in the Sun over a regional Tesco (Bangor) ejecting a Jedi for wearing a hood

‘Threat to safety’ etc etc no doubt - but the hoods are not the issue, the issue is that other people are allowed in wrapped head to toe in black cloth, revealing nothing but eyes

These are of course Muslim women in burkhas - I know they are allowed in because, aside from it being common knowledge, I have been many a time besieged by these trolley-menaces (for some reason they seem to have little spatial awareness...)

Now there is respecting religion and there is this - why is a person in a crash helmet, or a hoodie/Jedi knight outfit, obliged to show their face, but a woman in full Burkha not?

Religious reasons of course, it is 'disrespectful' to ask them to take it off - bollocks is it, we're just cowards

The fact is, it's a legitimate safety concern, if a shop (or an airport!) requires you to not hide your face then you can't bloody hide your face in there - either you accept that or you don't go there

But no no, we must be able to do what we want where we want because it's a religious thing - we will ignore the fact that it isn't a religious requirement at all, and question the logic here

We can debate academically about religious freedom all we like, but the cold hard reality is that some aspects of Islam (for I do not wish to slander all followers) are tolerated in spite of the law for no logical reason - there is no legal definition of a religion - and to secularists like me, we see all religions as equally silly nonsense

Many may ridicule Jedi knights, but to people like me, they are as valid as Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Jews etc - they may well be a bit of a joke, and we know it, but they are based on pretty much the same thing - fiction, in a thousand years it may be that Jedi is a proper respected religion based on the ancient tales of Skywalker, as told by Luc-as in the holy trinity (the prequels got lost in time)

'Real' religions have no logical grounds on which to be seen as superior - except they are older and have more followers, Scientology is a legally recognised religion in some states

So the fact is, you allow adherents of one religion to cover people's faces, but no others may do this - the law is for all, religion must bow to the rules - there is a reason Christianity is so tame nowadays - because it was controlled by modern Anglo-centric liberalism, we (as in, every western nation) developed our own codes of what is acceptable, you don't get to usurp that with an alien culture and then cry foul when we deny you the right to behave how you would in another part of the world

In this case it simply refers to an article of clothing, but we are happy to condemn honour killings and female genital mutilation, another part of certain people's religious convictions - why do we have to tolerate this when it's clearly also against our laws

I will put it in simple metaphor - let us say a religion states that all members must be naked at all times - acceptable?

Yeah right, that religion would be forced to practice these acts (which are against public decency laws) in private, and they would have to conform, but considering the 'tolerance' shown to Muslims this should be permissible, just as it is their duty to cover their whole body, despite public interest, it is their duty not to cover any part of their skin, despite public interest

This is nothing against Islam - I simply believe that the law should apply fairly to all, and it should be respected by all

"about a nice, civilised academic who is slowly seduced...by ambition, flattery and his own anti-Christian moral liberalism.Fashionable Leftists wouldn’t want to be reminded that the National Socialists shared quite a few of their views."

Liberalism takes us nearer to fascism than we might think...

It is a strange, twisted view, and is rather unfair to the film, and any 'liberal' (although I've no firm idea what he actually means by liberal), to condemn the main character's viewpoint as specifically being linked to Nazism

The point of the film was that any 'good' person can be quite easily corrupted by evil, I think the best way to destroy Hitchens' selective reasoning is to point out that abortion (another liberal pet-peeve of his) was of course, outlawed by the Nazis, whereas it was legalised in Weimar Germany (no doubt this is just as guilty for the converse - bringing down Weimar by destabilising the family structure..)

Hitchens points to the current support for euthanasia (somewhat different to the 1920s version I might add) and shows how evil leftie things such as this are not that far from the Nazis - but surely his own (and many conservatives') opposition to abortion is just as in line with Nazi ideology as to be pro-euthanasia was, after all they played to conservative, traditional thought far more than they ever did to liberalism, but no, support for a liberal idea that the nazis used in a horrific way is far more dangerous than any of the bulk of conservatism (family, nationalism, anti-obscenity etc) that made up Nazi ideology

In short, I found it a rather vile comment that is insulting to both the makers of the film and any 'liberal' who he smears with this contorted view, I don't expect a huge amount from him, but he's usually a decent person

Me:

That's Proper Liberalism

About me

Tarquin is a lazy, good-for-nothing, would-be historian who gets easily distracted by idiocy, hypocrisy (particularly of politicians) and football.

The name Tarquin comes from a couple of late Roman kings, and also from a Monty Python sketch, and possibly from some hippies I annoyed several years ago. Peter Hitchens has a problem with my name for some reason, the only reasoning for this seems to be that he thinks it's not a real name...which I'm pretty sure it is, although I'm open to being proven wrong.

Favourite hobbies include: eating, reading, shouting at the TV, watching football and pontificating.